MUMBAI: A special drive to immunize around 1,200 children from four wards with the oral and injectable polio vaccines will start on Monday. The mop-up round was ordered following the detection of type-2 vaccine-virus strain of polio in a sewage sample from Kurla.
A civic official said the drive is targeted towards kids between the age of 0-2 years who have missed out on their routine doses. Following the discovery of the p2 vaccine-virus during surveillance of sewage samples in August-end, an intensified screening drive was started in Kurla, its adjoining areas such as Mankhurd,
Deonar and all the way to Andheri east, Vikhroli and Bhandup. A child between 0-2 years is supposed to get five doses of oral
polio vaccine (OPV) and two doses of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) injection that provides protection against all three strains.
Health workers screened a population of 20 lakh in the four wards and found around 1,200 children have missed out on some doses. "Targeted mop-ups are intensified immunization campaigns carried out in areas where the virus is last recorded. Even though the p2 sample we found was of vaccine-virus and not of wild polio, it's important that children are 100% protected," said the civic official. Vaccine-virus is a weakened form that is added to the vaccine to generate immunity. The detection of a positive sewage sample in Mumbai around the same time stool samples of two UP children came positive for the p2 vaccine-virus had triggered fears of contamination since wild p2 strain was eradicated in 1999 and its use in vaccines too was stopped in 2016.
It, however, continues to be a mystery how the p2 vaccine-virus appeared in the city's sewage. More so, after the state's public health minister said that batches of vaccine suspected to be contaminated with the strain never reached
Maharashtra. A member, who is part of the city's surveillance team, said, "We didn't find a single vial of the old trivalent vaccine that contained the p2 strain anywhere in city. So the questions linger where it came from," he said, adding no other environmental samples have come positive after the one in August.
Special field camps have been set up in pockets where more than eight children have been found to have missed out on routine vaccine doses. A state official said that besides polio if the children have missed out on other vaccines that are covered under Mission Indradhanush such as tetanus, measles, meningitis and
pneumonia, etc, will also be administered the same. Anticipating some resistance in the aftermath of the polio scare, the health volunteers have also been told to counsel parents and allay any fears about the safety of the vaccine.
(Representative image)
